This trumpet befuddled the band director(and her trumpet playing band director husband) as to why it wasn’t playing well, and how they could feel air escaping. It took me a while, but I finally found the split in the leadpipe. In normal light it was very hard to see the split. Here’s how I fixed it:

Left Pic – Split in leadpipe…about 3 inches long
Right Pic – Sheet brass patch after cutting to preliminary shape

Left Pic – Patch cut to final shape
Right Pic – Lacquer removed and patch bent to contour of leadpipe

Left Pic – Other view of patch contoured to fit
Right Pic – Wire tied on leadpipe, prior to soldering

Left Pic – Soldered, but not cleaned up
Right Pic – Buffed and ready to go

The KING of Tenor Saxes was brought in for a total repad. The customer decided on Black Roo (Kangaroo Hide) pads with Gold Reso-Tone Resonators.

Left Pic – Ready for disassembly
Right Pic – Notice the duct tape on the Low Eb….UGH!

Left Pic – All disassembled
Right Pic – Keys ready for cleaning

Left Pic – Black Roo pads with Gold Reso-Tones
Right Pic – Pad Fitting almost complete

Left Pic – Assembly begins
Right Pic – Lower stack ready

Left Pic – Bells Keys on
Right Pic – Upper stack ready

Tenor sax came in and the palm D key rod had sheared off. This doesn’t happen often but does occasionally. Rods with a small throat(area between the threads and main part of rod) are very susceptible to this type of problem.

Left Pic – You can see the broken thread section extending out of the post. I’ve partially removed the threaded section here.
Right Pic – The key with the broken rod, now with the threaded section totally out

Left Pic – Time to find a donor rod…looking for something with the same threads and about the same size or slightly bigger in diameter. Length I’m not too concerned about length, since I can always cut off the extra.
Right Pic – Found one….just slightly bigger in diameter….will have to drill out key and post, but the threads already fit.

Left Pic – Drilled out and fits perfect.
Right Pic – Rod is too long, but that’s easily solved.

Left pic – Problem solved, now to cut the slot
Right Pic – This is my slot cutter. The metal sleeve has various holes for different size rods. The blade cuts the slot.

All done and ready to go.

Left Photo – Hard to see, but there is a crack running from the metal tube inside the bore to the tenon cap
Right Photo – Used a super thin super glue with a small bottle and teflon flexible tip

Left Photo – You can see the glue in and around the crack
Right Photo – My high tech holding system

All back together

3-Piece Giardinelli Trumpet Mouthpiece where the shank was seized to the bowl section. Whacked it with a rawhide; wrapped it in silicone tape and tried to free it with a 2 pairs of pliers; froze it, then heated the bowl…nada….finally whacked it a few more times with the rawhide, grabbed it wearing 2 heavy rubber gloves, and it popped free. Cleaned the threads and reassembled.

Repairing 3 cracks in one of our rental violins.

Left Pic – 2 cracks in the top, on the lower right side
Right Pic – Small cleat super-glued to clamp. This cleat will be glued to the underside of the crack through the F-Hole. The super glue will pull away from the clamp, leaving the cleat glued underneath the crack

Left Pic – 2 Clamps w/cleats ready to go inside
Right Pic – 2 Clamps going through the F-Hole. 1 Clamp drawing the crack closed

Left Pic – Gluing a small crack near the F-Hole
Right Pic – Another view of same crack

Left Pic – Broken String Bass End Pin with part of it still stuck inside
Right Pic – How else would you get out a broken bass end pin….a valve slide expander, of course…

Left Pic – I just slid it in, tightened the knob to expand the end a bit, and pulled the broken piece out
Right Pic – Replacement end pin is too big; it will need to be trimmed down

Left Pic – Chucked up in the lathe and slowly trim down the taper
Right Pic – Checking with the calipers

Left Pic – almost ready to go…final fitting was done with a band sander

This flute came in with the A Key bent backwards so far, the foot caught on the lip of the tone hole, and subsequently broke, damaging the tone hole lip as well.

Left Pic – Damage to the rear of the A tone hole
Right Pic – A better viewpoint of the damage

Left Pic – After rolling the lip back over, I still have a high spot at the rear of the tone hole
Right Pic – Using a small tone hole file, I lower the high spot

Left Pic – High spot gone
Right Pic – Now to fix the broken foot on the A Key

Left Pic – Ready for brazing
Right Pic – All brazed, ready for cleanup

All fixed and ready to go

We recently had this guitar in for an action adjustment and intonation.

Left Pic – Damage to the upper branch on a Yamaha Euphonium. The brace dented the tubing when the damage occurred. There’s no easy access to this area, without unsoldering major parts of the horn, and the brace can’t be re-soldered with the dent in there.

Right Pic – I’ve soldered a sax strap ring into the dented area

Left Pic – Using my slide puller(a soft rope with a weight), I’ve looped the rope through the strap ring. Using the weight, I can now “snatch” the dent back up into roughly it’s original position.

Right Pic – The dent is now “mostly” out. I don’t have to have it our totally, just enough so the brace will reach.

Left Pic – I’ve removed the strap ring, and now am soldering the brace back into position. By removing most of the dent, I’m able to solder the brace without any strain(pulling the pieces together). Soldering something back “strained” almost always leads to the solder joint failing down the road.

Right Pic – All done